Oral Answers to Questions

Barbara Follett: I am very happy to do so. I seem to be collecting quite a lot of meetings today, but I am happy to meet with the hon. Gentleman and to confirm my support for the site.

Andy Burnham: The hon. Gentleman sounds dangerously off message; it sounds as though he has not done his homework. I am led to believe that one Polly Toynbee is the columnist of choice for those on the Conservative Benches these days, and I am sure that her column is the first thing that he looks for when the papers drop through his letterbox. In  The Guardian today, she says:
	"at less than the price of a daily newspaper, the BBC remains astounding value."
	I happen to agree with that— [Interruption.]—but from the noises on the Opposition Benches, I am beginning to pick up on the fact that the Opposition do not. If they do not, they should make that absolutely plain.

Jeremy Hunt: Mr. Speaker, may I welcome you back after the recess? I welcome the new Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Stevenage (Barbara Follett), to her post. Her biography states that she is not so much a champagne socialist as a cappuccino socialist. As a cappuccino Conservative, I look forward to many stimulating cups of coffee with her at arts events.  [Interruption.] May I move the discussion on from cappuccino to ask the Secretary of State about the free swimming offer that he announced earlier this summer?
	The Opposition welcome anything that gets more people involved in swimming. What is The Secretary of State's response to the letter that he received this summer from the Labour leader of Stevenage council, the new Minister's constituency, which said that the average cost to a district council of implementing that offer for the over-60s alone would increase council tax by nearly 2 per cent? Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House a categoric assurance that his Department will fund the offer in full and not pass the costs on to hard-pressed council tax payers by the back door, when they are already so concerned about rising bills?

Angela Watkinson: Has the Minister see "Dance Manifesto", which is supported by more than 130 dance organisations across the spectrum, from our wonderful English National Ballet to I Love Salsa? Given the health, social and artistic benefits of dance, what will the Government do to strengthen it as an artistic pursuit?

Vincent Cable: I thank the Chancellor for his statement. I do not think that any of us envy him for the very considerable weight of responsibility that rests on his shoulders, and we are going to have to work together in the common interest. There will be a time to decide who made mistakes, but the issue now is: have we moved forward?
	The Chancellor said that he will do whatever he has to do in the financial crisis. He is right, and I hope that he will, but there are some issues that need clarifying. In the wake of the apparent German decision to give a complete guarantee for all deposits in the German banking system, it seems to us that the British Government will indeed have no alternative but to give a comparable assurance to people in the British retail high street banks. We all know that our bank deposits are safe. Some of my own modest savings are in the Bank of Scotland and some are in the Royal Bank of Scotland, so I am more than usually dependent on both the Chancellor and the Prime Minister and on the First Minister of Scotland not to let me down. However, there are anxieties. People have anxieties about specific questions such as merged banks, large deposits during house sale transactions and small independent businesses, and there needs to be more clarity about the guarantees than the Financial Services Authority has currently given.
	Secondly, the Chancellor said in his statement that he is pursuing a case-by-case approach. He is right, and we have no quarrel with what he did in relation to Bradford & Bingley and HBOS-Lloyds—that seemed to be the right approach. However, we are now in a different situation, where banks are being picked off one by one. I set out proposals yesterday, and the Conservative leader said something rather similar this morning— [Interruption.]—about the need for recapitalising the banks with a form of partial nationalisation. I hope that the Chancellor will confirm that those specific ideas are under active discussion.
	Finally, I would like to say a little bit about interest rates. Of course, the issue is about the availability of credit, but it is also about official interest rates and the implications for mortgage borrowers and small businesses. I have been a very strong advocate of the independence of the Bank of England; I made my maiden speech about it in this House 10 years ago. Does the Chancellor not think it appropriate, in emergency conditions, to make it absolutely clear that the mandate of the Bank of England must include responsibility for averting a meltdown in the financial and economic system? Those members of the Monetary Policy Committee who are going around saying that the problems go no further than the financial system need a line of communication back to planet earth. We do need to be thinking about radical cuts in interest rates.
	I know that the Chancellor has said that my comments on this subject are dangerous, and I recognise the dangers. These are very dangerous times, and decisive decisions are going to have to be taken over the next few days and weeks to safeguard millions of jobs and homes. I hope that the Chancellor will give us the leadership that we need on those issues.

Mark Hoban: I think that the Government went through a consultation process. It will be interesting to see just how the Government will consult on how they allocate the money from the reclaim fund to the three priorities. What sort of consultation process will they expect to see? How will they gauge the amount to be allocated to each of the three priorities? What weight will they give to the fact that the person responsible will be the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, one of whose main responsibilities is youth services? It is not clear how we will get a fair process lined up.
	Of the three priorities in England, two—youth work and financial inclusion—are already supported by Government expenditure. The challenge facing the Government and the Big Lottery Fund will be how to demonstrate that money spent is additional to the money that the Government already intended to spend. That additionality is quite a difficult issue for the distributor to come to terms with. It is easier if the scheme is launched part-way through a comprehensive spending review period, but once a scheme is up and running there will always be concern that the spending priorities have been set in the knowledge that money is coming through from those sources.

Simon Hughes: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept that although, of course, money is available from the Government—directly and indirectly—for activities for young people and for youth work, there is no statutory responsibility for such funding. That means that there is never any guaranteed money for that age group, and that is one reason why it might be a good first cause in England and why I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support its remaining the first cause in England.

Martyn Jones: I congratulate the Chief Secretary on introducing the Bill to the House. As someone who has been campaigning on the subject of dormant accounts for many years, I am delighted that the Bill has reached this stage today. The issue is technical, and a great deal of consultation and discussion with the banking industry has taken place. It is a credit to the Government that we now have an opportunity to legislate. Having made speeches, launched more early-day motions than I can remember and lobbied the Government for nearly a decade, I was half afraid that I would become dormant before seeing the introduction of the Bill.
	The Bill is important, despite its less than stimulating name, because it will have the potential to pour considerable resources into our national economy and to prevent unused resources from languishing hopelessly in the coffers of private companies. It may pave the way to fund community projects across the country, thereby strengthening Britain's social fabric and altering the lives of a great many people. To that extent, it matters a great deal.
	People are supposed to check their bank accounts every so often, and I first came across the issue of dormant bank accounts when I decided to look through my standing orders, direct debits and so on. I found a £1 direct debit going into a building society that I had never had any contact with in my life, as far as I was aware. I thought that I would stop paying it, but I then decided to find out more about it. I was going into town the next day, so I took the reference number and popped into the building society. I found that the money was going into a fundraising account for the Labour party that had been closed about 10 years previously, apparently.  [ Interruption. ] Opposition Members may say that the account should remain dormant. The party got my money eventually, but it thought that it had closed the account. That is the point, and I wondered what would have happened if I had not stopped my direct debit. The building society could have used that money to loan to other people to generate money. Essentially, it would never have had to give it up to anyone.
	As luck would have it, Ireland was starting to legislate for the same thing at that time, so I looked around the world at other countries that had introduced such legislation, and quite a lot of countries have done so. I thought, "Well, what can I do about it?" I wrote to every bank and building society in the United Kingdom to ask them three questions: what was their definition of a dormant bank account; how many did they have; and how much money was in them? Not surprisingly, not many of them told me the answers, but some did. A sufficient number answered to enable me to work out that there was a great deal of money sitting doing nothing—or at least doing nothing but making profit for the banks and building societies.
	I wrote to the British Bankers Association, but it seemed quite happy with its scheme, which consisted of one person in the BBA offices distributing forms to people who wanted to know where their bank account had gone. It took me two years to get a meeting with its then chief executive, Ian Mullen; after showing a great deal of reluctance, he eventually met me. He, too, thought it quite acceptable to continue to have only one person meeting the needs of people who had lost contact with their bank accounts.
	The problem has had a very slight impact on my personal life, but for countless others, the impact is great, and will continue to get greater. The reasons for dormancy are many and varied, and we have heard some of them. They include death and intestacy; small, overlooked standing orders; and simple forgetfulness. No matter what the reason for the dormancy of the account, all people with a dormant account have one thing in common: the right to regain the money to which they are entitled. The Bill has at its heart the objective of reuniting people with their money, and I salute the lengths to which the Government have gone to protect that right in the Bill. It is just and fair that the rightful owner be placed at the heart of the legislation, as they have been.
	I suspect that some in the press, and perhaps in the House, will attempt to scaremonger and pander to cheap media criticism of the Bill. Even in 2004,  The Daily Telegraph referred to the Government's "dormant accounts grab". I urge Members of all parties to steer clear of that line of attack, because the effort, skill and consultation that has gone into protecting individual citizens' finances is laudable. Any accusation that the scheme is theft from private bank accounts is wholly without substance.
	I pay tribute to the provisions of the Bill that ensure a perpetual right of reclaim, to the provisions that mean that a member of the public need not deal directly with the central reclaim fund but can always deal with their own bank, and to the Government's continued efforts to lead a public information campaign to reunite people with their lost funds. I hope that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury can assure us that the provisions will be acted on fully, and that the Government will continue with their public information campaign aimed at allowing people to reconnect with their lost funds.
	The Bill is not about moving funds from citizens' bank accounts to the Government's. It is about reconnecting people with their lost funds. Where that is not possible, the Bill is a means of using unclaimed and lost funds to achieve social goals in the community, and preventing those funds from padding out the profit margins of the banking industry. The Bill's goal is highly commendable. It raises the amount of money available for the furtherance of good causes and lowers the risk that any British bank account can be lost forever without a right to reclaim.
	I have praised the Bill, but I have concerns about the voluntary nature of the scheme; that subject has already been raised. At present, no bank will have to contribute to the scheme if they do not want to do so, and if they commit to the scheme, they are under no compulsion to do so fully. That, obviously, is what is meant by a "voluntary" scheme. Recent times have perhaps shown that the free market, and in particular banking lobbies, cannot be trusted to act in the public interest of their own volition. Stronger regulation over recent years could have gone some way to protecting us from the current credit crunch, but I will not dwell on that.
	I am not alone in expressing fears about the opt-in scheme; I am joined by the Treasury Committee, which respectfully urges the Government to reconsider a compulsory scheme. It should be noted that not a single developed nation with dormant bank accounts legislation has chosen anything but a compulsory scheme. Such schemes are found in Ireland, the USA, Canada and New Zealand. A compulsory scheme would guarantee not only a level playing field for all concerned, but a single unified banking commitment and fidelity to the legislation. I understand the Government's desire for soft-touch regulation but I cannot align myself fully with that desire. Regulation is not burdensome when it is necessary. As I say, I have concerns about the voluntary approach. The first such concern is simply that the banks will not participate at all, especially as they can currently use the credit crunch as an excuse for non-participation.

Martyn Jones: Absolutely. I am delighted to do so, but there are two separate things that should not be confused. First, banks' charitable giving: most major corporations give out of their profits— [I nterruption. ] I am talking about money on their balance sheets that they do not want to give up. They were reluctant even to tell me about the amount on their balance sheets, so those are two different things. I am sure that Barclaycard and many other banks give money, but we could be talking about a great deal more than the amount of charitable giving.
	Banks are granted plenty of leeway in the definition in the Bill of a dormant account. The Bill does not state whether the 15 years without customer contact is a time without contact by way of withdrawal, or by way of failure to pay in funds or to write to the bank. The banks have the luxury of interpreting that for themselves, and I suggest that they will do so in such a manner that is to the advantage of no one but themselves. In short, they will frame a definition of dormancy that involves minimal payment.
	The banks are seemingly granted leeway in the definition of a dormant account with regard to the start date of such an account. The point made by the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) is relevant here. The notion of dormant accounts remaining always the property of the owner was only formally introduced in the banking procedural code in 1992. Will banks now apply that regulation to all accounts, or will they apply the regulation more favourably to themselves and state that only those accounts that became dormant post-1992, after the introduction of the code, count as truly dormant and should therefore be transferred to the reclaim fund? I hope that the Minister can offer guidance on such a practice and say whether she would discourage it?
	There is a real risk that banks may very well place a minimum-amount standard in their definition of dormancy. For example, an account can be classified as dormant only if it contains a sum greater than £100. Several banks and building societies have applied such criteria when it came to contacting customers with dormant funds. That is fair enough in the case of someone with the dormant sum of £1 lying in their account, as it costs £1.50 to contact them. However, that is not the situation in this case. I hope banks will not apply the same contact definition to the definition of dormancy required for a transfer of accounts to the reclaim fund. There should be no minimum amount standard. As I suspect that a large proportion of dormant accounts contain small deposits, that is important. Will the Minister agree to clarify the situation regarding a minimum-amount standard?
	There is mounting evidence to suggest that some definition-based abuse of the voluntary scheme may well be taking place. One need only look at the changing estimates for how much return the public can expect to see from dormant bank accounts. Estimates have always varied as to how much money there is in dormant accounts. High estimates have stated that there is more than £20 billion in dormant accounts.
	In 1997 an Inland Revenue study stated the figure to be a more conservative £2 billion to £4 billion. In its coverage of the 2005 pre-Budget report, the BBC placed the figure at £15 million. In 2006 Grant Thornton looked at the Irish model and its progress, and estimated that there might well be £5 billion in dormant bank accounts. We really do not know. In 2007 a sitting of the Commons Treasury Committee placed the figure at £500 million. The Commission on Unclaimed Assets said £400 million.
	As the years have gone on, the figure appears to have got less and less. A potential £20 billion to £400 million is quite a shift in figures. Some have tried to explain this by looking at the period of 15 years enshrined in the Bill for an account to become dormant. The Bill sets a period of 15 years, whereas previously banks set their own internal definition, when they replied to me, of three to five years. It seems remarkable to me that even £5 billion can be turned into £500 million by removing just 10 years of dormant funds from a definition.
	In 2004 I conducted my own private poll of major banks and building societies in the UK. One major bank, which must remain nameless because I said that it could, told me that it alone had around £400 million in dormant accounts. I had a conversation with one representative of that same bank recently, and it revised its figure to £50 million, so £350 million has disappeared. I cannot explain that, and I would be interested to know whether the Minister has asked the banks whether they can explain it.
	The voluntary scheme clearly has its frailties. However, it could be made more likely to succeed by an increase in the information available to the public. Voluntary regulation tends to work best when those watching the scheme have adequate information by which to judge the participants' performance. My understanding of the scheme is that banks would have to declare the amounts given to the reclaim fund, but that is not enough. We do not know the total sum in dormant accounts in order to measure levels of co-operation. We have the banks' estimates, but that is all. It is my understanding that banks will be required to undergo an audit. Can the Minister confirm that that figure will be put into the public domain?
	We cannot compare various banking contributions as we do not know which definitions of dormancy are used by them. Does the Minister accept the need for banks to publish the exact terms of their definitions of dormancy? At present we are faced with a very odd problem. If, under the current voluntary scheme, the money collected is less than expected, it will be difficult to decipher what that means. It could be a signal that the banking industry is reneging on its promises, or it could simply be a sign of a successfully run reuniting campaign. We just do not know.
	MPs do not often say this, but we do not know enough. That is a confession, I suppose, but it is true. We do not know enough to judge the performance of the voluntary scheme. We have too little information; the banking industry has it all. I strongly suspect that, as in the case of the revenue from dormant accounts, we cannot hope that they will share it with us.

Martyn Jones: I am sure that you will not allow me to go down that line, Mr. Deputy Speaker. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman's other point that the distribution should be on a needs-based basis. However, as a Member from mid-Wales, he will know that there are problems with distribution even within Wales, and they must be closely watched.
	I have discussed the regulation controlling the use of funds and observed the extreme juxtaposition of regulation in the Bill. I do not oppose the regulation of distribution. The task is difficult and the Government should be involved in the use of public money by an external agency to fulfil social goals. However, I cannot help but notice the contrast. It appears that the agencies distributing the money cannot be trusted to do their job without tight regulation, yet they are charities with a record of success, such as the Big Lottery Fund. On the other hand, it appears that the banking industry can function fine without regulation, despite its record of indifference in that area.
	Let me move to an entirely separate aspect of the Bill: the definition of dormancy. As many of my hon. Friends will know, it was a matter of some discussion in the other place. I have looked into some of that debate and a few alternative definitions of dormancy have suggested themselves. When I refer to the definition of dormancy, I am referring to the time period over which an account has to be left untouched before it can be transferred from the bank's revenue to the central reclaim fund. The Bill declares that period to be 15 years, as per clause 11(1)(a). I would like to ask the Minister why exactly a 15-year period was selected.
	In the consultation, the Commission on Unclaimed Assets appeared to recognise that time period as provident, as
	"it best recognised the accounts which were dormant".
	However, that explanation appears to be little more than a reformulation of the question, rather than a genuine answer to it; indeed, it is a tautology. A similar explanation was used by the Government in response to the Treasury Committee's recommendation that 15 years be reduced to 10 years. Can the Minister today shed any further light on those two explanations? I was pleased to hear that, as the Chief Secretary said, the Government will apparently support a possible change in the definition somewhere down the line. However, 15 years is too long, and can be proven to be too long now.
	Given the protection of individual funds, which I praised so highly at the start of my speech, I am confused as to why we should need such a long definition when the money is not going to disappear. The money is there, and people who have the information can go to their bank and the reclaim fund and get their money back, regardless of the time period. I would have thought that there was a case for a differential definition, so that if we are talking about an investment account, the period should be 10 years, and if we are talking about a current account, the period should perhaps be three years. There are international precedents for using a sliding scale, which is one of the ways in which a dormant bank account is defined in the United States.
	I have two further points—I am sorry that I am taking up so much of the House's time, but as you can probably tell, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have been looking into the issue for a long time. The first point is about the mechanism used to allow people to reclaim their dormant funds. The British Bankers Association and the Building Societies Association have set up a central tracking website, as well as a central tracking form. That request for information will then be circulated around various banks and building societies, which will check their records to see whether any names match, in the hope of locating any dormant accounts. That is a great move forward, although one that has happened only in the past few years—the banks and building societies seemed to be quite happy before the prospect of legislation. That view is echoed in early-day motion 1581, which stands in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (John McFall), and the idea seems preferable in most respects.
	Secondly, the Government have thus far rejected the notion of a central register, claiming that it would have vast repercussions for the bank-customer relationship. That point is not without merit and there is no doubt that we should act with caution before impacting on such a contractual arrangement. However, I would like the Chief Secretary to say exactly what she considers the danger of such a centrally held register to be. Surely it would be formed with a minimum of information. Names of account holders and funds would be the only two details originally required. If the reclaim fund is a secure database, I struggle to see what threat is posed by such a register. I am sure that other hon. Members will talk about the issue later and it is right that it should be covered in more depth. However, I felt that I should at least offer my support to the cause, as I believe it to be a good cause and one worthy of championing.
	Let me make one final point—again, it has already been made, but it is worth repeating. The Bill is a good start. It is not, as an infamous US politician once declared, a case of "mission accomplished". Instead, the Bill is the moment when the mission really begins. The fight to stop private interests from writing off billions of pounds of assets into their profit margins has now been taken up in the limited instance of bank accounts, but it has yet to find a legislative champion when the practice rears its ugly head in different forms, some of which have already been mentioned. To name just three, unclaimed insurance policies, unclaimed pension policies and unclaimed gambling winnings are examples of where private interests are winning out. The Bill is not the right place for those issues; I mention them to remind the Minister of the continuing work and legislation still required in this field, which I am sure she will acknowledge.

Jeremy Browne: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention and I recognise the need to give discretion to Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I anticipate, however, that if no money were spent in Scotland on youth services, for example, a fuss would be made that the people of Scotland had been led to believe that the Bill would realise money for those purposes. It is a difficult balance to strike. My hon. Friend makes a fair point and I hope that the Minister will respond to it: the public have been given the impression—not misled—that the money will be devoted primarily to youth projects, and some will be concerned that if there is no indication as to what proportion of the money will be so directed, although it need not necessarily be on the face of the Bill, many campaigners on these issues might be disappointed.
	My fourth area of concern is the lack of a national register, which was raised earlier in respect of wills, legacies and other funds that are not readily accessed without such a register. My fifth concern, which I hope the Minister will address, is with the mutuality of building societies, the £7 billion asset threshold and the discretion accorded to some but not other institutions. I look forward to hearing the Minister's comments on that.
	My final concern is the voluntary nature of the scheme. I assume that it is voluntary because the Government are nervous about appearing to compel financial institutions to act under the diktat of the state. In the last few months, of course, these considerations have altered somewhat, but I assume that the motivation reflected the Government's sensitivity on this area. We are left in the strange position whereby Ministers tell us that the scheme is entirely voluntary, but that they anticipate that every bank will wish to participate. The scheme appears to be a form of voluntary coercion, if it is possible for us to understand such a concept. I do not understand what incentive the banks have to sign up to the scheme. If it is voluntary, why should the banks support it? Much depends on their being seen to do the right thing and not incur the wrath—or at least the bad will—of the Government. It may be, however, that struggling banks will now regard that as a lesser priority than when the legislation was initially conceived.
	In Committee, we intend to explore the following issues in more detail. First, we want to include a reserve power to create a mandatory dormant account register so legacies can be rightly reunited with their legal owners. Secondly, we want to include a reserve power to turn the scheme mandatory if participation is insufficient. It will depend on market circumstances, but it will be useful to have such a power. Thirdly, we want to support the triennial review, as advocated in the House of Lords, as we view that proposal as having merit. Fourthly, we want to support the removal of the £7 billion asset threshold for building societies, and, fifthly, to ascertain the percentage split apportioned to each UK country. One can understand why there should be some discretion, but the Minister's clarification of how much will go to youth services, financial education and social investment would be helpful. A firmer indication of how much will go respectively to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would also be helpful.
	Finally, I would like the Minister to clarify why the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families is taking the lead on distributing the funds. One can assume only that the emphasis put on youth services will be greater than that on financial education and social investment. That seems a reasonable assumption: many will welcome it, but others who want more money spent on financial education and social investment will not. It remains a mystery to me why the Department for Children, Schools and Families is taking the lead role unless the emphasis is going to be on youth services. The Department's remit is exclusive to England— [Interruption.]—so it will not have a useful role in investing money elsewhere in the UK. I am rightly corrected by a sedentary intervention to the effect that the Department is not wholly English in its concerns, but it is largely concerned with English matters.
	My conclusion is that the new Economic Secretary should consider an early power-grab and see whether the Treasury—or, indeed, the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in which he is also a Minister—should take the lead on this matter. If not, why is the Treasury forfeiting its usual role? Is the Minister confident that the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families will distribute the money in the most appropriate way?

Mark Todd: I shall come to that and suggest some other problems that undoubtedly arise.
	The Committee struggled to see what incentives a bank will have to participate fully in the scheme. Another speaker also questioned what incentives might be in place. There is, to some extent, an incentive in the disclosure mechanisms that lie within the proposals in that the reclaim fund will publish the details of contributions made to it. Therefore, by definition, those who have been less enthusiastic participants will be exposed, although there may be reasons why their contribution might be lesser. They might be more effective in tracing links to unclaimed funds, for example. Such information will probably not be a particularly strong enforcer of participation.
	A refusal might also, particularly in current circumstances, be considered by shareholders in the institution one of the lesser faults of that institution, if I may put it that way. This matter will not be a high priority among most shareholders or, for that matter, among the executive management team. We can be pretty sure that it will not be a bonusable objective in banking to distribute unclaimed assets as rapidly as possible to a reclaim fund. Other means than something of this kind will be sought to motivate senior executive teams, so there clearly is an issue of how to ensure that the proposal delivers something like the objectives that we all have for it.
	I do not think that there is a risk of banks and building societies refusing to participate because, once people have become aware of these matters, that represents open defiance of the genuine public will and of Parliament. Nevertheless, we should consider the commitment of resources to the task that participation involves. This is not a trivial activity. From what I can tell, the average size of such accounts is between £100 and £200, and in many cases the costs involved in tracking down individuals to reunite them with those accounts will probably exceed the sum involved. Therefore, one can hardly say that a financial institution will be unwise to think carefully about how to prioritise its resources to achieve the objectives of the Bill.
	Without a compulsory framework, one can see considerable difficulties. For that reason, the correct balance is probably struck here in terms of facilitating a voluntary approach first and then reviewing the mechanism established by the Bill to see how it is working. We will then be able to see whether rather firmer statutory enforcement is required. I am sure that we will discuss that further in Committee, although I would wish that it were not necessary. I hope that this would be a task committed to by the financial sector with some enthusiasm, but one has to say that that is a counter-intuitive thought in current circumstances and in relation to the mechanisms in place to reward bank staff for achievement of particular goals.
	I note, for example, that my noble Friend Lord Bach said in the other place that
	"prestige is likely to be attached to participation".—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 29 January 2008; Vol. 698, c. 568.]
	I have a lot of respect for his opinion and I know him well, but I must admit that I am not sure that that will be a substantial motivation for people to press ahead with the scheme.
	I hope that the Minister will suggest some more powerful mechanisms to prevent lip-service participation by businesses that are committed to taking part in the scheme. It is fair to say that at the margins—much of banking is a low-margin activity—there will be a temptation for companies to exercise some competitive advantage in this area by the efforts that they put in, because the steps that are taken will undoubtedly and obviously have some effect on removing cash from the institution concerned.
	There is an argument about how much the balance sheet will be weakened. After all, both sides of the balance sheet—assets and liabilities—are involved. These proposals will certainly remove a cash resource from institutions and, as I have said, there is a cost attached to the activity itself. Some institutions might decide to spend less money and time on it and observe with some enthusiasm how others spend rather more time and effort on it. The competitive nature of the industry might persuade some to put in fewer resources than they should.
	Let me turn to the issue of data, about which most people in the House care pretty strongly. One must presume that at least some details of individual assets and their presumed owners will be transferred to the reclaim fund for ongoing pursuit, so it is worth the Minister setting out some reassurances on the transfer of what we must recognise are data about individuals and their financial circumstances, whether they are still alive or not, and whether, for some reason or other, they have no wish to be identified with their assets. These matters might be very personal to them, so we need to be sure of the security of the transfer of personal data.
	I also presume that, should a bank or building society cease to be active, tracing an individual's account back to him will become an obligation of the reclaim fund. Therefore, the data that are transferred must be sufficiently full to make it possible to establish such linkage at some future stage. We must always recognise that, however old some of these accounts are, someone may indeed have some claim on them, and they have every right to that claim.
	We have also touched on the participation of National Savings & Investments, and here I firmly side with the Select Committee. I felt that the Government's answer on the reason for the exclusion of NS&I from the scheme was rather thin and that it implied that if they gave this money away they would have to find the same amount somewhere else. Yes indeed, but this is someone else's money. In some ways, it could be argued that that is true of everything that the Government have, but that is an over-philosophical argument to have at this time of night.
	However, we are talking about savings which, by an individual deliberate act, have been placed in the care of the Government to bring some return. That is different from the receipt of money from all of us as taxpayers. My personal view is that NS&I ought to participate in the scheme on the same basis as banks and building societies. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain with more rigour than the Government mustered in their response to the Select Committee report why that should not be true.
	My anxiety about the disbursement mechanism in no way reflects any ill-will towards the good causes identified by the Government. They are all sensible and we can debate the precise balance of the spending between them this evening and in Committee. However, I am concerned that we are dealing with other people's money, held by private institutions. I would have preferred a more inclusive mechanism for deciding how the resources should be distributed than simply saying that we will give them to the Big Lottery Fund and setting out the broad objectives that we have in mind. To go back to my earlier remarks, that takes us a little further into the state's role in the matter than I would optimally have preferred. Even at this late stage, I would prefer more consultation so that stakeholders can have a greater say.
	A good example of that is the role of charities. It is undoubtedly true that a significant proportion of the money may well be attributable to charities on the basis that they are the beneficiaries of a will. Although the voluntary sector should not have the exclusive say, I would have welcomed some participation by it in the process to decide whether the priorities are right and perhaps to answer some of the questions on proportionality as it relates to the good causes named so far.

Julie Kirkbride: I apologise for not having been able to be present for all of the debate so far. Parliamentary business took me away, causing me to miss what I am sure was an excellent contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban), with which I would no doubt have strongly agreed. I apologise to him, in his absence. Since then, however, I have heard contributions from other Members, including the Chief Secretary, who not only made a very good speech in support of her Bill but displayed open-mindedness over the potential of the Committee stage in respect of a number of the issues that have been raised. I think that the House will welcome that; I certainly welcome her attitude.
	I returned in time to hear the hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) express his well-thought-out objections to the Bill. I must say that while none of us want to be friends of bankers nowadays, I do not take his dim view of the banking industry, so I did not entirely agree with many of his observations. I thought that the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) made a very good speech about the pinch points that remain in the Bill, which I am sure will be raised in Committee. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) gave an excellent presentation of his experience on the Select Committee. I strongly agree—and I wish to make this the thrust of my own speech—that if we are to have the proposed register, it should be based much more on names than on institutions if it is to have a realistic prospect of reuniting people with their assets.
	I support the Bill and its intentions. I think that it proposes a very good use of money that is lying dormant in bank accounts. Bearing in mind the statement that we heard earlier, however, I worry slightly about whether now is the moment to introduce such legislation. Perhaps we shall return to that issue in Committee. As was observed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples), if we face such a dire situation in the banking industry, it may be worth considering a delay in the implementation date of what is nevertheless a worthy Bill.
	I am sure that we can all argue about whether 15 years is long enough for assets to lie dormant, and about whether the Big Lottery Fund is the right body to distribute the money. I share reservations that other Members may feel about that, and no doubt views will differ on whether the Government have identified the right organisations to benefit. I respect their mandate to decide such issues, however, so I shall set my reservations aside and agree to agree with them in that regard.
	I wish merely to make an appeal on behalf of charities that have contacted me. Enthusiasm for the good causes that will benefit from the Bill may make it easy to lose sight of the fact that this money belongs to someone. It may belong to someone who is alive, or it may once have belonged to someone who is now dead and who will almost certainly have left a will expressing intentions about how the money should be used.
	One in seven of those who leave wills bequeath money to a charitable organisation, amounting to about 5 per cent. of their estates. Whether we are talking about £500 million or billions of pounds—for we do not know how much the Bill will liberate—we are talking about an awful lot of money that could go to the charitable sector. The wishes of the money's owner could be respected if it were given to, for instance, Cancer Research UK—which has contacted me—the British Heart Foundation, which receives some 47 per cent. of its funding through legacies, or a range of other charities, all of which do fantastic work and rely heavily on legacies to maintain their core funding, their fundraising activities being in addition to that.
	I think it behoves Parliament to consider charities' worries about the inadequacies that they see in the Bill at present. They want to be sure of being able to identify and claim their assets. I am sure that the Minister has seen early-day motion 1581, which refers to the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition. I think that its request is modest and reasonable. It suggests that we should see whether a voluntary scheme works, but also take the precaution of stating in the Bill that if a case can be put in the triennial review that it has not been seen to work, the Bill will provide for the establishment of a different kind of register that will enable charities to claim their assets much more effectively. That would not bind the present Parliament, and would not impose an excessively bureaucratic burden on banks—which I understand is what worries Conservative Front Benchers, and we can all understand that at the moment. It would, however, mean that we would not need to have recourse to primary legislation again if we wanted to devise a more robust system. Powers in the Bill could be activated on the advice of a future Parliament.
	As was suggested by the hon. Member for South Derbyshire, the online traceability scheme relies on knowledge of the name of an institution that might hold assets that a charity might feel belonged to it. As we all know, perhaps from our own experience but certainly from the experiences of friends and family, it is easy to forget about small amounts of money in a bank account. We may change our name or address, we may lose the paperwork, the box may be in the attic; but it is easy to lose track of small amounts if, for certain reasons, we have opened a variety of bank accounts. Without a name with which to trace someone—people's lives change: they may get married, change their names for other reasons, or move house—it is easy to lose sight of bank accounts. That is particularly true when someone dies, and the relatives must perform the horrible business of clearing up that person's life and financial accounts.
	I completely understand that there are concerns about fraud, but successful schemes that have brought forth a much easier way of tracing people's accounts and assets already exist in America and Ireland. The ambition of the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition, which comprises sixty charities, is modest; all they are asking is for the legislation to include a chance to revisit this issue if the Government's good intentions set out in the Bill are not as successful as they might be. I welcome the Economic Secretary to his new role at the Treasury, alongside his other responsibilities elsewhere in Government, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say later.

Tom Levitt: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride), who began in the style of someone making a winding-up speech, to the extent that I suddenly wondered whether I was going to be called to speak at all. She told us that someone who is dead is someone who is not alive but, in what was a good and consensual speech, she made the important point that this is our one chance to get the legislation right. We will not revisit this issue through primary legislation because the Labour Government of 2011 will be too busy, and we owe it to everyone involved, whether bankers or the communities who will benefit from this, to get the legislation right first time. There are a number of issues about that which I shall address later.
	I take, rather than declare, an interest in this issue as chair of both the Community Development Foundation and the all-party group on the community and voluntary sector. Until this Bill came along, I had not realised that in one important respect the banking industry is part of the voluntary sector, and I will return to the issue of whether the banks will volunteer to take part in the dormant accounts proposals.
	I was interested to think about the nature of the funding that will come out of this legislation—as well as the quantity, which is also important. Is what we are talking about a windfall, or will there be an ongoing stream of funds as more and more current live accounts become dormant in the future? My guess is that, in the future, as awareness of dormant accounts rises increasingly through the reunite process and other means, there will be fewer dormant accounts reaching maturity. Also, as people have more control over their accounts, through internet banking and so forth, there might be less chance of them losing control of those accounts in the future. Therefore, there is a worry that what we are talking about might, in effect, be a windfall—that it might be a source of income that peaks over the first two or three years as the backlog of dormant accounts gets cleared but that then rapidly falls. If we believe the British Bankers Association, we are talking about the sum of £500 million. That is a lot of money in some respects, but over how many years will it be spent, and will it get topped up as the years pass?
	As the Chief Secretary told us at the beginning of the debate, that £500 million equates to 0.07 per cent. of banks' assets. In other words, the size and impact of this scheme, were it to be taken up 100 per cent. by the banks, is a pinprick. It will not make a difference to the stability of the banks, and while I understand the sensitivity in the current circumstances—which could not have been predicted weeks ago, let alone months ago or when this issue was prioritised—we should enact the legislation. We possibly should talk later on in Committee about implementation dates, but, even in these circumstances it is right only to tolerate months of delay, not years of delay. We need to know how much money we are talking about and, as has been said, the BBA estimate is at the bottom end of the estimates. Regardless of whether we end up with a voluntary or a mandatory scheme, we need to find a way of being clear about how much money is involved and the time scale governing that money.
	I agree with what has been said about the reunite process. It is absolutely right that people should be reunited with what are, after all, their own possessions. Like other Members, I have had the e-mail from Halifax Bank of Scotland telling me how it is getting on, with £18 million of dormant funds already allocated and £29 million still to be allocated. It also told me that 83 per cent. of accounts left to be reunited hold less than £100. For that reason, I would be wary of the suggestion reported to us by my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) that there should be a £100 de minimis sum, because if we are talking about 83 per cent. of all these accounts, lots of those £100s make up a lot of money, and they should be included.
	HBOS went on to tell me that 244 dormant accounts had been identified in my constituency. I found that a bit odd, because either it is extrapolating, in which case on average there should be 244 accounts per constituency, or it knows the postcodes of the people who own these accounts and who it is seeking to reunite with them. I would be interested to know from HBOS whether those 244 accounts are an extrapolation or that is the right figure.

Tom Levitt: That is interesting, and it does not reflect well on the people of the northern part of Derbyshire who are obviously more careless than the people in the southern part of Derbyshire—I hope that does not get reported.  [Interruption.] Indeed. Taking the figure of 244 such accounts in my constituency as an average—which might be an overestimate—given that it is said that the average sum per account is £316, there is about £50 million over the country as a whole from HBOS alone that should be available for this scheme. That figure must then be multiplied by the sums for the other banks and building societies as well, so we are talking about a lot of money.
	I want to talk about the issue of whether this scheme should be mandatory or voluntary, on which I made an intervention earlier in the debate. When my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary sums up, I would like him to make a point—he might write this down now in capital letters—of listing for us all the Treasury regulations that are voluntary. Which of the current regulations can financial institutions opt in or out of as they choose? I think that will be a very short list. I do not see what the point is of having optional regulations. As has been said, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States of America and Spain all have dormant account recovery schemes and none of them has gone for the voluntary approach, because they realise they cannot get as much social value and investment coming from those dormant accounts through voluntary means; my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire articulated that point well. A mandatory scheme would be equitable because it would treat every financial institution involved in exactly the same way. At the very least, I urge my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary that we must have, as the hon. Member for Bromsgrove said, a reserve power so that we do not have to return to this House when we find in a few years' time that the voluntary approach has produced very good results from some institutions and negligible results from others, because that is the way it will work.
	I take on board the Chief Secretary's point at the beginning of the debate that a triennial report is probably more important in the early years of the working of the scheme, and I think that after one or two years we would probably know how successful the scheme is, so I am willing to go along with her on that to some extent. However, I think there needs to be at least one triennial report to review the effectiveness of the scheme and to examine how much money banks and building societies have transferred for reinvestment. I am agnostic about whether 15 years is the right length of time after which to declare an account dormant. I am fighting the case of a constituent whose dormant account is 10 years old and appears to have disappeared completely already. Fifteen years is probably a bit on the long side, but such a period does indicate that control of and interest in an account has been lost.
	Finally, I want to look at the distribution mechanism. The National Lottery Act 2006 gave the Big Lottery Fund the power and authority to handle non-lottery as well as lottery funding. The Arts Council and Sport England also have the same powers, as I understand it. More than 80 per cent. of those who took part in the consultation on who should be the distributor of unclaimed assets said that the Big Lottery Fund was the correct organisation to do it. It is already responsible for delivering half the funding raised through the national lottery to projects across the UK concerning health, education, the environment and charitable purposes. The themes that we have heard about so far as the Bill and the focus of this money are concerned are totally appropriate for that.
	I find it a bit odd that the issue of additionality was brought up by the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) earlier. Additionality was one of the sticks with which the Conservative party used to beat the Big Lottery Fund and its predecessors. However, the Big Lottery Fund won the argument over the years, and we have not had an argument for three or four years about additionality. Although there may be grey areas and areas where funding is complementary, we accept that the taxpayer, through the Government, has certain obligations, but that complementary funding from other sources is wholly appropriate. What is more, the Big Lottery Fund has won the trust of the people for being fair in the way that it delivers, and it certainly has the experience. The young people project, through the Young People's Fund and YouthBank UK, was a lottery project that gave young people themselves direct input into decision-making projects regarding who should benefit from the funding. I hope that that practice will be taken up again in this instance. The Big Lottery Fund has experience of individual financial management and access to personal financial services through the advice plus programme, through which it awarded more than £11 million to projects for financing and fundraising across the UK. As a social investment wholesaler, it knows that partnership is the key to delivering projects, avoiding duplication and making effective use of funding. The £50 million "fair share" programme, for example, operated in 77 areas of the UK, working in collaboration with the Community Foundation Network—a much underestimated body—to get money to where it really works: inside our communities.
	I very much welcome the fact that we are talking not just about grants so far as distribution is concerned—another Member touched on this issue—but about loans and endowments being made through this funding. All of that helps to create a much more sustainable form of funding, whether or not it is within the life of the funding stream, in so far as it goes.
	There is therefore no need to debate who the distributor should be—the Big Lottery Fund has won that argument. It has a record of appropriate funding, and of openness and transparency and accountability to Parliament. It has well-established offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and in the English regions. On financial efficiency, according to the National Audit Office, its overheads, at 9.1 per cent., are lower than any of the other lottery distributors', so it is an obvious and satisfactory choice of distributor.
	We will have some interesting debates in Committee, and I hope that there will be some movement on the mandatory versus voluntary issue, because that is the only way that the provision can be made reliable, as well as sustainable.

Richard Spring: It is very good to follow the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt). There is clearly a particular Derbyshire interest in this subject. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson) on his new role at the Treasury. I think that he combines it with his role at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, where I suspect, on balance, he will have more fun. However, we welcome him to his new role.
	Like the rest of my hon. Friends, I fully support the motivation behind the Bill and I certainly welcome the spirit in which the Chief Secretary to the Treasury spoke about her approach to considering possible amendments in Committee. That is good for the purposes that lie behind this legislation. I wholeheartedly believe that allowing money in dormant accounts to be used to help good causes or to be reinvested in the community is completely the right thing to do, and it certainly has my full support.
	The Bill follows a long period of consultation and discussion, which we heard about, between the Government and the banking sector, as well as with the Treasury Committee and the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, chaired by Sir Ronnie Cohen. There was much discussion during the Select Committee's proceedings as to how the money should be directed, and there were a number of suggestions. It is worth looking at some of those that were put forward. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) and the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt) suggested that the first claim on the unclaimed assets should be given to the victims of the wind-up of occupational pensions. The Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise called for a focus on microfinance for the over-50s to enable more of that generation to start up businesses. Although many worthwhile ideas have been floated, I welcome and support the allocation of the unclaimed assets to improving youth services in particular, and to tackling financial inclusion and boosting social investment.
	However, my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) talked persuasively about the issue of additionality, which was at the heart of what the original lottery legislation was all about. The point is that these areas are already funded by Government expenditure, and I should like the Minister to tell the House how this money will be spent differently from money already spent by the Government on new services. This is an important point, and we come back to the additionality factor.
	When the Bill was debated in Committee by Members in the other place, Lord Howard of Rising mentioned that in his evidence to the Treasury Committee the Economic Secretary admitted that youth services had been underfunded for years—a point that I think is generally accepted throughout this House. However, that raises some question marks over the ability to guarantee that the revenue from dormant accounts will not be substituted for normal Government spending. I come back to the point that it is crucial that we all understand what the Government have to say about this issue. Can the Minister therefore tell the House what proportion of money in dormant bank accounts will be transferred to the Big Lottery Fund? If he cannot answer that question, is it wise to make specific commitments about the use of funds, such as those made on youth centres? I look forward to his reply.
	Before this money is given to help these good causes, it is vital that there are robust measures in place to reunite owners with their unclaimed assets—a point that has been powerfully made by a number of Members today. I very much welcome the banking industry's efforts to achieve that, which I believe to be absolutely genuine. That is all the more essential as this is a time when many families are under great economic stress, and the situation is getting worse. It is also crucial that once the liability is off the bank's balance sheet, there is reserve in the reclaim fund so that it can still pay out to customers who come forward in future to claim their assets. That possibility has to be considered. The Government must continue to give an assurance that a balance will be struck between funding good causes and protecting the customer.
	The British Bankers Association believes—we have heard many estimates—that that there is between £250 million and £350 million in dormant bank accounts. The Building Societies Association estimates that there is some £150 million in dormant building society accounts. Taking those figures together, we are talking about £400 million to £500 million in UK dormant accounts.
	I would be interested to hear whether the Government agree with the Treasury Committee that banks' estimates of funds in dormant accounts are more likely to be underestimates than overestimates. The Chief Secretary touched on that, but it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the Government's evaluation of this matter after their consultations with the banking industry and the building societies. The House of Commons Library agrees with that assessment, because it believes that the scale of unclaimed assets
	"is staggering, but, the estimates vary hugely and reliable sourcing of any estimate is very difficult."
	The Halifax alone has £700,000 of unclaimed money for customers located in the east of England, some of which undoubtedly belongs to my constituents.
	I am glad that many banks and building societies are now focusing their efforts on becoming more proactive in reuniting customers with their accounts. To take up the point that the hon. Member for High Peak made, this voluntary activity—the framework of this legislation—will work only if such a process materially takes place. We must monitor the situation to see whether a more statutory basis is warranted in future.
	Last month, HSBC started to send out letters to its 17,000 customers who have unclaimed money in dormant bank accounts; the average amount in their forgotten accounts is £1,400. In the same spirit, Lloyds TSB announced earlier this year that it had brought in a search agency to track down the holders of 120,000 dormant savings accounts. A number of hon. Members have mentioned the website that provides a free service to help to trace lost accounts and savings. That website, which I have visited, brings together the three tracing schemes of the British Bankers Association, the Building Societies Association and NS&I into a single website, meaning that anyone who has a dormant or lost account with a bank or building society or NS&I, or with all three, can initiate a search simply by visiting the website. It is free to use, it averages more than 760 claims a day and I find it easy to access. I am encouraged by the progress that has been made in accelerating the process of finding the owners of dormant accounts. Following the consultations, I believe that the banks and building societies understand the importance of getting this issue right, and the House will welcome the fact that there seems to have been movement in that direction.
	It is so important that the process of reuniting lost accounts and savings with their owners is kept under review and works effectively. It is essential that the effectiveness of the scheme and the amount that the banks have transferred for investment is constantly examined. If we are to have a statutory scheme, it is imperative that it is accountable to Parliament. Such a provision had been missing, so I was pleased that in the other place the Conservative party successfully amended the Bill to ensure that the reclaim fund sends specified information to the Treasury, which must then lay it before Parliament. I was also pleased that their lordships voted in favour of another amendment, which was sponsored by Baroness Noakes, to provide for a triennial review of the scheme's operations.
	It is also vital that the money passed on to good causes remains entirely separate from and additional to normal Government spend. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the Bill's objectives are entirely admirable, yet I am worried that the Big Lottery Fund has increasingly become insufficiently independent of Government. For example, the BLF has awarded about £1 billion in grants to statutory bodies such as schools, local councils and national health service trusts since 2004. In a March 2005 press release entitled "Healthy Food in Schools—Transforming School Meals" the then Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly) unveiled a £280 million package to transform the quality of school meals. Despite the fact that more than a fifth—£60 million—of the money was coming from the BLF, the Government seemed happy to take the credit for that decision 36 days before the 2005 general election. That is not at all the spirit in which the lottery was founded or in which it should operate. Unclaimed assets should be used solely for the benefit of society; they should not be used to solve, even by implication, any short-term problem or to achieve what is considered desirable politically by any Government.
	I would like the Minister to assure the House that all money given to the BLF from dormant accounts will go only to projects in the voluntary and community sectors, where it should really go. If the money is to be spent differently, what measures will be in place to ensure that the BLF does not duplicate Government spending? I simply cannot see how additionality will stay intact. Given the choice, no Minister will choose to spend money that comes from his own budget over money that will come from the BLF. I am afraid that such has been the pattern for a number of years. That is why money that has not come as a result of general taxation must be accountable to an independent body.
	In passing, let us consider the composition of the BLF. There is an argument as to whether it should be the distribution body that implements the legislation. Over the years, a number of questions have been raised about the role of the lottery. If there is a change of Government after the next general election, we will introduce a national lottery independence Bill to free the national lottery from political interference by making the National Lottery Commission and the distribution bodies accountable to Parliament.

Martin Horwood: I rise to defend the good name and judgment of mutual building societies and, in particular, the Lords amendments that seek to allow the largest of those building societies to exercise their judgment and to follow the priorities of their members, rather than those of the Government, in distributing some of the funds that we are discussing tonight.
	I claim two qualifications for speaking this evening. As Member of Parliament for Cheltenham, I am, perhaps slightly unexpectedly, the local MP for the Chelsea building society's headquarters. I could not speculate about why it went up-market and ended up in Cheltenham, but I am glad that it did so, as it has been a welcome contributor to the community in Cheltenham and a responsible and ethical presence in our community. I am one of the few hon. Members who has successfully won funding by applying to the national lottery funds and bank and building society foundations in my earlier career as a director of fundraising for a national charity. So I have had experience of the funding processes of both sides, and I shall return to some of that experience later in my remarks.
	It is rather a topical time to debate these issues, particularly the status of the mutual building societies. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker) and other Conservative Members to decry the greed and irresponsibility of the banks, but the Conservative party is rather a fickle partner in that respect, since it has been absolutely in love with the banking sector and some of the more exciting practices of, for instance, the demutualised building societies for many years. It obviously encouraged that process when in government. It is telling to note that we have now witnessed the final demise of all the demutualised building societies. They have all either crashed or been swallowed or nationalised. We have none left, but we have a relatively healthy mutual building society sector, which, thankfully, is still with us. The mutuals still have tens of millions of members and £150 billion-worth of assets, and they are one of the healthiest sectors of the financial services industry, with loans overwhelmingly backed by retail savings.
	We ought to listen to the large mutual building societies. They have concerns about the direction of the legislation, and those concerns were reflected in the Lords amendments. In the Bill, there is a £7-billion threshold above which banks and building societies would lose control of the funds. Funds above the threshold would be handed to a reclaim fund that would be administered, ultimately, by the Big Lottery Fund. The amendments proposed in the Lords removed that threshold for building societies and allowed larger building societies, but not banks, to administer those fund through their own charitable foundations. That was a good thing. I am afraid that I was disappointed by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury's opening remarks, in which she suggested that the Government would try to overturn those amendments. I hope that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and his colleagues will think twice before fighting that battle, because they would be quite wrong to do so.
	After all, what is the difference in principle between a building society that has more than £7 billion-worth of assets and one that has less than £7 billion-worth of assets? There is no difference apart from size. Both are mutual organisations that exist for the benefit of their members and that have exercised good judgment in doing so; £7 billion is a completely arbitrary figure to choose. As I pointed out in an intervention, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury rather misleadingly implied in her opening remarks that we were talking about the stratospheric, top layer of the building society market, and that most building societies would still be able to administer their own funds. Of course, that is true in numerical terms, but in terms of the assets, the 80-20 rule applies. Some 83 per cent. of all building society assets are controlled by the seven top building societies.
	We need to examine the Government's rationale for trying to remove the right of building societies to administer funds that are made available from dormant accounts. That will tell us a lot about the Bill. Perhaps the Government think that the Big Lottery Fund will be a more efficient, more expert and more supportive funder than the building societies' own foundations. I have to say, from my experience as a charity fundraiser, that the reverse is true. The lottery funders, through no real fault of their own—it was more the fault of the way in which the original legislation was designed—had to administer a pretty bureaucratic, awkward system, from which most charities found it a bit of a nightmare to extract money. In contrast, bank and building society foundations such as the Lloyds TSB and the Nationwide and Chelsea building societies foundations have extremely good reputations in the voluntary sector. They are able to administer funds wisely, and as hon. Members have said, the fact that they look to some of the less popular, more difficult causes earns them a lot of praise in the voluntary sector.
	Perhaps the Government thought that there was a higher rate of dormancy among large building societies. Again, I am afraid that the reverse is true; building societies generally have higher average balances and therefore a lower rate of dormancy overall. The statement might apply to the large banks, but it certainly does not apply to large building societies.
	Perhaps the Government thought that they are better judges of how the money should be spent, because of their strategic plans. That brings us back to the issue of independence and additionality. I am really disappointed by the fatal words in clause 23(3), which do a lot to undermine the good work that the Government did—I am happy to give them credit—during the passage of the National Lottery Bill only three years ago. That Bill sought to address the issue of the mistreatment of some of the lottery funds. That mistreatment had given lottery funders quite a bad reputation. One need only think of the way in which the New Opportunities Fund was set up; on one notorious occasion, funding announcements were made by a Minister at a Labour party conference. There was the school meals episode, in which the Government awarded hundreds of millions of pounds not from their funds, but from lottery funds. Those are examples of exactly the kind of practices that the National Lottery Bill was designed to prevent. It was a good piece of legislation that enjoyed all-party support. It should have tackled the issue and made unlikely any further Government intervention. However, clause 23, entitled "Directions to Big Lottery Fund", has the fatal phrase:
	"Subject to subsection (6), the power to give a direction under this section is exercisable by the Secretary of State."
	It is sad to read those words in the legislation. They begin once again to undermine the independence of the lottery funders. The funds are no more the Government's than any other lottery funds ever were.
	In the case of banks, money from dormant accounts is, in a sense, the property of the original bank account holders, but in the case of building societies, it is certainly the property of the members of the building society. It is unfortunate that the Government should seek to exercise their control by means of strategic plans on how the money should be spent. I am perfectly happy to accept that youth services, for instance, are underfunded; they have perhaps been neglected in previous years. However, that does not make it right for the Government to start rewriting the rulebook on how lottery money is spent.
	Perhaps the Government thought that there was no difference in kind between banks and building societies. However, the legislation accepts that there are different kinds of accounts. Perhaps the Economic Secretary would like to explain why National Savings & Investments is exempt from both the £7-billion rule and the legislation as a whole. It is regarded as different and special. I would say that the mutual building societies are different and special, in that they have an obligation to serve their members. The money is, in a real sense, not the company's property but the property of its members. It has a duty to its members, and not to any shareholders who could be suspected of ulterior motives by the Government. There is an important difference in kind, which is rightly reflected in the Lords amendments.
	Perhaps the Government think that the big building societies are somehow less able to manage, account for and distribute funds than the Big Lottery Fund or the Government. Once again, the reverse is true; almost all the large building societies have already set up an infrastructure that has a very strong reputation when it comes to accounting for, recording and reporting the use of charitable funds. Their established charitable foundations are a well-established, highly respected set of bodies that are very good at administering charitable funds.
	We are left with only one obvious explanation why the Government should seek to apply the £7-billion threshold to building societies as well as banks: the Government must have some political reason for bolstering the Big Lottery Fund. Perhaps there is embarrassment about the underfunding of youth and other services that they now seek to support. Perhaps they are embarrassed about the use of lottery funds to subsidise the Olympics. However, I urge them to resist their command-and-control tendencies and those slightly Stalinist inclinations that have characterised so much new Labour legislation. I ask them to step back and recognise the importance of the independence of the mutual building societies, and of the Big Lottery Fund, and to trust those bodies to stand up to political interference and to administer funds wisely, as they have done with regard to many hundreds of millions of pounds over decades. The Government should take this opportunity to dispel any suspicions. I very much hope that the Lords amendments will stand, and will not be removed by the Government. If the Government take the path that I suggest they take, they will have my full support.

David Gauke: It is a pleasure to wind up this Second Reading debate, but before I deal with the points raised during it, I should first declare an interest as a non-executive director of an institution that takes deposits, albeit one that has only recently been licensed to do so and is therefore unlikely to have any dormant bank accounts for some years.
	Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I should welcome the hon. Member for Dudley, South (Ian Pearson) to his new post as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I recognise that he will be dividing his time between being a Treasury Minister and being a Minister in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. I am not sure whether his brief is, on behalf of the Treasury, to keep an eye on the new Secretary of State for Business, or to keep an eye on the Treasury on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, but either way, I wish him well in his new post. He may well be forgiven for questioning the timing of the debate. After all, the Bill left the other place in February this year, and he may consider it somewhat unfortunate that we are debating it in this place within about 24 hours of his appointment. However, I am sure he will have mastered the details of the Bill for his winding-up speech.
	We began our debate from the Back Benches with a useful contribution from the hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) who clearly has a long-standing interest in the matter, which appeared to be provoked by his discovery that he was paying a direct debit to the funds of the Labour party, of which he knew nothing. There is nothing unusual about that. It probably applies to thousands of trade unionists most of the time, the difference being that it turned out that the bank account to which the funds were going was dormant. It might have been best to let sleeping dogs lie, but that was not how the hon. Gentleman approached it. He has played a significant role in the development of the debate.
	As I run through the issues that we debated, I shall address some of the concerns raised by other hon. Members. The Opposition are broadly sympathetic with the details of the Bill and we will support it this evening. The first part of the Bill relates to the raising of funds from the dormant accounts. The second part deals with how those funds are distributed. We are sympathetic to the structure of the first part. It is right that financial institutions are encouraged to reunite deposit holders with their assets—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring)—and we acknowledge the steps taken by a number of financial institutions to do that.
	We support the principle of a voluntary scheme. The hon. Members for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and for Clwyd, South, the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) speaking in his role as the emissary of the Treasury Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Miss Kirkbride) questioned whether a compulsory scheme would be better, or whether we should keep the option open and include provisions for a compulsory scheme at a later date, should a voluntary scheme be found not to work.
	We share the Government's approach. We think it would be useful to use the expertise of the private sector in a voluntary scheme. It would be cheaper and more efficient, and therefore a better way of raising funds for good causes. It would be a fundamental change in the nature of the Bill were it to contain reserve powers for a compulsory scheme at a later date. If there is a switch to such a scheme, Parliament should consider it closely and properly and have the opportunity once again to debate the matter in the form of primary legislation.
	We also share the Government's caution—I think that that would be a fair word—about the definition of dormant. We do not want to adopt an aggressive approach and we think 15 years is an appropriate length of time before an account is considered dormant. We also support the idea, which was advocated by the noble Baroness Noakes, that banks or building societies must use their knowledge of the account, the account holder or any other relevant matters in determining whether an account is dormant. We do not want funds to be paid out, only to be followed by significant numbers of claims on dormant accounts that are no longer dormant. We understand the Government's caution in respect of the 15-year limit.
	It is essential that deposit holders are able to reclaim their funds, notwithstanding the fact that the account has been dormant for some time. It is vital that such confidence exists, so that there is no basis for the criticism that is sometimes made that the Bill is a grab for other people's assets. Again, we share the Government's approach on the fundamentals, but there are differences, particularly on the scope of the assets covered. As the hon. Member for South Derbyshire observed, the Treasury Committee considered the issue and questioned why, for example, pension and life assurance funds could not be included in the scheme. It would helpful if the Minister could address that.
	In particular, it is worth considering National Savings & Investments. The hon. Member for South Derbyshire described as somewhat thin the Government's arguments for not including that. It is notable that in the debate in the other place the Government argued that that would result in an extra tax burden or increase Government borrowing or Government debt. That does not make sense. A dormant account with NS&I, were it to be closed, would be a reduction in debt in one respect and, transferred elsewhere, would be a creation of debt somewhere else. For balance sheet purposes, it would have no implications, so I do not see what the Government's defence is. If they are saying that it is for taxpayers' benefit not to include NS&I, we need to understand why.
	It is worth making a parallel with one financial institution that will presumably be affected by the legislation—Northern Rock. Will the Minister confirm whether Northern Rock will participate in the scheme? It is, of course, a voluntary scheme, but the arguments made for NS&I could apply to Northern Rock. I would be grateful for the Minister's thoughts on that.
	We support the principles underpinning the Bill, but we want to see how it will work. That is the purpose of the triennial review provided for in clause 12. That will enable Parliament to see how the scheme is working and to examine the arguments about whether it should be extended. It would be helpful for the process to take place not just once, but on an ongoing basis, although clearly it is important, three years after the Bill has come into force, to see how the process is working, given the accumulation of dormant accounts. We therefore hope that the Government will not seek to amend or repeal clause 12 or the provisions relating to ongoing triennial reviews.
	We also think that parliamentary accountability is important. We have already discussed the reclaim fund in today's debate. The Chief Secretary referred to the fact that the reclaim fund is very much a private scheme, but we must remember what it is there to do. It serves a public end, having the purpose of providing funds for good causes, but it must make a judgment about what can be distributed safely and what will need to be held back in the event of any subsequent reclaims.
	Parliament will want to be able to take a view on how the reclaim fund is performing. We must also remember that the reclaim fund is subject to direction from the Treasury, under clause 5(4). The fund is very much a public body. Notwithstanding the fact that it is a private scheme created by the BBA and the BSA, it performs a public role and Parliament is therefore entitled to take a view.
	The second issue is how money will be distributed. That provoked a great deal of comment from Conservative Members. Concerns about the efficiency of the Big Lottery Fund were raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr. Walker), for West Suffolk and for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge). Concerns were also raised about the lack of clarity about the objectives. In a sense, there are three objectives: youth services, financial inclusion and the social investment bank.
	However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) made clear in his opening speech, it is not clear what proportion will go to which objective, what the priority will be or who will allocate. As far as we can see, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families will have that role, although he is responsible only for youth services, not the other two objectives. Does that mean that youth services will be seen as the most important? It might be right for them to be seen as the most important, but we have not had that clarity from the Government. Again, I would be grateful for some clarification from the Minister.
	A number of hon. Members mentioned additionality. My hon. Friends the Members for West Suffolk, for Northampton, South (Mr. Binley) and for Broxbourne all raised concerns about whether the expenditure resulting from the Bill would go on things that the Government already intended spending money on anyway, or on things that would be funded by the lottery but which the lottery cannot fund because the funding is going to the Olympics. That raises a concern about the involvement of the Big Lottery Fund, in that there could be a lack of clarity about where such sums are coming from.
	That brings me to one of the most important issues, on which the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) spoke very authoritatively—namely whether banks and building societies should be able to use their own charitable trusts for funds created as a consequence of dormant accounts or whether everything should go through the reclaim fund and the Big Lottery Fund. The particular area of dispute concerns the larger building societies. There is an agreement on the part of the Government that smaller building societies should be able to use their own charitable trusts because they have strong links with local communities. There is no argument that large banks or banks as a whole should be able to use their own charitable trusts, although it is worth noting that the Government recognise that large charitable trusts can play a valuable role in particular communities.
	Again, it is worth considering the example of the Northern Rock Foundation, which, although Northern Rock has been nationalised, the Government still fund with something like £15 million a year, to be spent in a particular part of the country. If that is an appropriate approach, one wonders why the Government cannot look into the issue more broadly in the context of this Bill.
	The Government recognise that small building societies may distribute funds through their own charitable trusts, but remain resistant to allowing bigger building societies to do so. However, the larger building societies dominate the market. There might be only seven or eight building societies that exceed the £7 billion asset barrier, but their assets constitute some 83 per cent. of all assets. They are still mutual societies, working in particular areas and rooted in communities. I urge the Government, in the current spirit of bipartisan co-operation, to look into the issue again.
	We will support the Bill this evening. It serves a valuable purpose, and it has been improved by amendments during the course of proceedings in the other place. We urge the Government not to reverse those amendments. In its present form, the Bill addresses the main concerns while allowing some flexibility for the larger building societies. It provides sufficient—or, at least, adequate—parliamentary accountability, and we urge the Government not to seek to take it back to its position when it first went to the other place.

David Amess: It might seem like only yesterday, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that we had the summer Adjournment debate, but it was actually quite a long time ago and an awful lot has happened since then. I want immediately to congratulate the Minister on his elevation to membership of the Privy Council. It is an honour that is well deserved, and I wish him well with his deliberations as a Privy Councillor.
	This Adjournment debate concerns the regeneration of Southend. Of course, those people who have had the delight of visiting Southend might say, "Why on earth does it need regenerating?" I say to the Minister that it certainly needs some assistance in the regeneration process that it is undergoing, but I want to thank all those who have given assistance thus far. Given the very difficult times in which we are operating, we need a great deal of assistance with our regeneration process in Southend, but saying that is in no sense to be churlish or not to thank the Government and all the agencies for their assistance thus far.
	We are blessed with an excellent council in Southend, ably led by Councillor Nigel Holcroft and his deputy, Councillor John Lamb, and we have a first-class chief executive, Mr. Robert Tinlin. However, in advertising that he is a first-class chief executive, I do not want anyone to try to entice him away from Southend, because he is doing a very good job for us. The council has decided that the overarching rationale for regeneration in Southend from its perspective is to make the borough as a whole a better place to live, work and invest in, and to visit. The council, along with the various partners, is working towards that end. It has decided on a delivery plan comprising three points—an economic development and tourism strategy, a regeneration framework, and a central area master plan.
	I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) will, with the Minister's permission, be able to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, as I believe that he will probably make some more detailed comments about the regeneration process. I shall not waste the House's time tonight by going into detail about each of the partners with which Southend's council is operating. I simply say to the Minister that it is working with a lot of partners, and in these difficult economic times we need co-ordination, because it is confusing for my hon. Friends and my constituents to work out where the help is originating. I know that the Minister will not have time tonight to respond in detail to the various points that I shall make, but I hope that he will reflect on the fact that too many agencies are involved in the delivery process. Such a situation involves some sort of bureaucracy and that will be expensive.
	I shall briefly raise many points. I know only too well of the Minister's experience as a Treasury Minister, so I say to him that one of the most important issues for the council in terms of the success of Southend's economy is the lack of fit-for-purpose office stock and, consequently, employers are frustrated in their demands. The council believes that the Government could assist in one immediate way: by stopping the recent application of business rate tax on empty, redundant buildings. The effect of the tax has been the demolition of buildings that would otherwise have been partially let to small businesses. I know that he does not have a blank cheque and that this issue is a nationwide one, but if ever he has the time and opportunity to visit Southend—we would welcome a visit from him—he could see at first hand how that particular policy, despite the best of intentions, has had an adverse effect on Southend.
	My hon. Friend won his seat of Rochford and Southend, East in 2005. Before that, I had been devastated by the impact of the 2001 national census. I have raised that matter on many occasions in the House and I have had meetings with councillors, officials and the people responsible for the national census. I found all the arguments unconvincing; how could it possibly have been claimed that Southend's population had reduced by 20,000? According to that national census, Southend's population reduced from 180,000 to 160,000, but that was simply not possible. Anyone living in Southend knows that its population has increased, but the Government have to work within their own guidelines and, as a result, we received £7 million less than would otherwise have been the case. This was a very serious issue, although I shall not bore the House by going over the arguments that I have advanced on many occasions. I simply say to the Minister that a New Local Government Network report published on 20 August bore out the council's assertion that the population was underestimated by between 16,000 and 20,000 because of
	"poor-quality information on households, high rates of population mobility and a growing reluctance to fill in official forms."
	Not one person was prosecuted for not filling in the census form. It is without doubt the case that, far from falling, the population in Southend is growing. However, we suffered financially from the national census.
	On a positive note, I had the privilege of chairing the Committee on the London Olympics Bill. Of course, I had to remain impartial, but now I am free to say that I am a wholehearted supporter of the Olympic games. I was born in the east end of London, and seeing what is happening there now gives me great joy. I am determined that, in 2012, Southend will be at the heart of the Olympic games. Southend is on the London boundary. Indeed, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) would claim that his constituency is the boundary, but Southend certainly has a good claim.
	I have listened carefully to what the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has said about our plans for the opening ceremony. We will not try to compete with Beijing—we do not have 2,012 people to bang drums for a start—but it is a splendid idea that the various towns in London will help to celebrate the games. My dream is that the pier in Southend, which is the longest pier in the world, will somehow be used in the opening and closing ceremonies. The pier would provide us with a unique opportunity to show the rest of the world, against the background of the wonderful River Thames, the joy that everyone feels as a result of our having the Olympic games in 2012. I will bang on and on about that, just as my former colleague who represented Bournemouth, East used to bang on about the millennium bug and computers.
	The British performance in the Olympic and Paralympic games was wonderful, whether one is interested in sport or not, and we should all take pride in that. I am therefore very excited by the prospect of having the games here in 2012 and I am delighted that Southend and Essex county council are working with the Government to ensure that we are involved in the celebrations. I hope that the Government will give us a little more help to promote the top-class diving facilities that we are developing at Garon park. They will include a 10 m platform, which will be the only one in the east of England, and it will be used as a practice site for Olympic divers. Southend has produced some successful Olympic divers, and this will be the best facility in the country. It will be a wonderful training site, and I hope that we can attract some of the visiting countries to use the facilities as their base.
	It is also excellent news that the mountain biking events will take place at Hadleigh castle, which is just on the border of Leigh-on-Sea in my constituency. Local residents are very excited by the opportunity. It is probably too late to change, but I wish that we could have had the sailing off Southend, as well as other activities based there, such as women's football at the new Southend football stadium, which will be ready in about 18 months. The Minister will be pushing at an open door in terms of Southend's enthusiasm for the Olympic games. I hope that he will regard Southend as part of London, albeit on the cusp of the city.
	The new swimming and diving pool in Garon park in Eastern avenue is due to be opened in 2010 and Southend council has set aside £10 million for the project. It will provide a valuable diving training site for our local athletes. The Warrior square pool will be demolished and we will have a wonderful facility at Garon park. Southend has had three Olympic divers in recent years and 20 international divers from both junior and senior squads. The council thought, as one has to specialise in some area, that that would offer a good opportunity to do so. Any help from the Government would be greatly appreciated. It will not be a 50 m Olympic pool, however, but a 33.3 m one, as my old constituency, Basildon, has the 50 m pool. I hope, given that Basildon is quite near to Southend, West, we will be able to link up there to celebrate the activities of the swimmers, too.
	The need to attract international swimming teams is particularly acute following the closure of the 50 m pool at Crystal Palace. I am delighted that Garon park has been selected as a pre-games training camp and I hope that we can build on that. I am absolutely delighted that we have also been designated a Paralympic training camp for boccia, goalball, sitting volleyball, wheelchair fencing and wheelchair tennis. Southend council is working very closely with Essex county council to promote that in whatever way they possibly can.
	I have already mentioned the pier. Sadly, we have not had one fire on Southend pier, nor two fires, but three fires, and that is very regrettable. I do not know whether the Minister has ever had the opportunity to visit the end of Southend pier on the train, but it is a wonderful leisure facility. Obviously, to have suffered three fires is pretty devastating and any extra assistance that we could be given to help with the regeneration of that Victorian pier would be greatly appreciated. For instance, the rotten decking urgently needs repairing and we are desperate for financial support. If any assistance could be given, through whatever funding, towards repairing the deck, that would be greatly appreciated.
	I am very grateful for the assistance that has been given recently in terms of improving some of our road networks, such as the A12 and other roads, but I want to make a few brief points about Priory crescent. Before my hon. Friend became the Member for Rochford and Southend, East, that became a contentious local issue. In summary, we are talking about traffic congestion in Southend. There is a very famous park called Priory crescent and it was deemed that a road widening scheme should be embarked on. Local residents became upset because that would have meant cutting down some very old trees and a number of houses would have been blighted as a result of the road widening scheme. A number of campaigning individuals have set up a camp on site and have been there for a number of years. The argument about the scheme has gone on and on. Given that money is very tight at the moment and that widening the road would be very expensive, I would have thought that it would have been advisable for the Department to reflect on the project.
	The Minister might not have time to say much about it this evening, but it would be helpful to say that we need to look again at that project. The scheme is expensive, but for it to have hung over local residents for so long is, to say the least, very unhelpful indeed.
	The road improvement schemes that are welcome, because the Government awarded £4 million to the council to improve Southend's roads, include the resurfacing of Kenilworth gardens in Westcliff, Chalkwell esplanade and Elm road in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East. A cycle route from Chalkwell avenue to the seafront will also be embarked upon. I am very grateful for that.
	Given the Minister's time in the Treasury, he will be aware of the reorganisation of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. In Southend, we have very few large employers, and HMRC is a very important employer in the town. The announcement that 400 jobs would be cut over the next three years, which would cause a 20 per cent. reduction in the Southend work force, is absolutely devastating. That decision seems rather bizarre, given what the different agencies that help the regeneration of Southend have said about employment prospects, and it would be a devastating blow to the local economy. I simply ask the Minister to look again at that proposal.
	I will not get into arguments tonight about housing in Southend, because there is no land to build on in my constituency. It is not an issue in Southend, West; it is more of an issue for my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East. However, I want to touch on other issues very quickly, one of which is cliff slippage. Again, if the Minister does not have time to respond now, perhaps he will write to me. A few years ago, the cliffs in Southend began to slip. One of the things that we are very strong on in Southend is the parks department's planting of the cliffs—absolutely magnificent—but unfortunately, we suffered a mile-long slippage. One of the Minister's colleagues was helpful and responsible for allocating some money for the restoration of the cliffs, but we need more, because the cliffs have continued to slip and dealing with that has proved more expensive than we expected.
	The lift to get senior citizens up the cliff connects Clifton terrace with Western esplanade; unfortunately, it is expected to be out of service for another year while works are done. It was built in 1912—again, this links in with the Olympic games—and it is one of few lifts of its type in the country. The council refurbished the lift two years ago, with a helpful £1.8 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant. However, the cost has risen by £400,000, because of new European regulations that classify the lift as a cable car, rather than as a railway. That will necessitate a re-examination of the lift mechanism and paying costly consultation fees. I know that that is not the Government's fault. There is a new European regulation in place, but if we do not comply with it, we will never get our lifts. Again, I ask the Minister to look into the matter and to find out whether there is any way in which assistance can be given, perhaps through European funding.
	Another point that I wish to raise with the Minister is the silting-up of the Thames estuary in Leigh-on-Sea. A number of fishermen and women in Leigh depend for their livelihood on cockling and on catching Dover sole, but the Thames estuary has become increasingly silted. A project to try to solve that problem would be very expensive. Perhaps the Minister could consider the issue.
	Earlier tonight, I was invited with colleagues to the Royal Opera House to enjoy a number of brief performances. During the evening, it was announced that Thurrock, the other unitary authority in Essex, is benefiting from a scheme run by the opera house to try to bring the arts, which are of course expensive—and, some would argue, elitist—to more challenging parts of the country. The opera house has set up a wonderful workshop in Thurrock. I seized the opportunity and sought out the gentleman in charge of the Royal Opera House's education project. He tells me that he will work with Southend-on-Sea borough council and the local college to see whether we can develop the arts in Southend. The Minister will know of a number of famous actors and actresses from the area. A Southend girl won an Oscar last year with her portrayal of the Queen. We have many famous singers, dancers, sculptors and painters, too; there is a real gathering of cultural excellence in Southend.
	Let me come on to the point of this Adjournment debate on the regeneration of Southend. Southend was once a very popular seaside resort. It attracted people for holidays of a weekend or a little longer. The Minister knows only too well of the difficulties that Southend and other resorts have experienced. We cannot do anything about what some people regard as the unreliability of our weather. We cannot do anything about the impact of competition as a result of cheap flights—or what were cheap flights—which have meant that the world is becoming increasingly smaller. However, Southend and other seaside towns have basically lost their place in the market as resorts. We have decided to try to reposition ourselves. At the heart of that are the leisure and cultural opportunities that I mentioned. However, Southend also wants to position itself as a centre of learning. The South East Essex College of Arts and Technology in Southend has joined in a partnership with Essex university, and that partnership is having a wonderful effect locally. I thank the Government for any assistance that they have given us thus far, but I would welcome any further assistance that the Minister and his Department could give.
	I have claimed, over the years, that Southend is the finest resort in not only the country, but the world. Which Member of Parliament worth their salt would deny that? The joy of experiencing the moving picture that the Thames estuary produces is quite unique, and it will be celebrated when we enjoy the Olympic games in 2012. However, Southend really does need help with regeneration. The area that I represent has the highest number of senior citizens in the country; that is why we are in the "Guinness World Records" book for holding the greatest gathering of centenarians in the country. Those senior citizens want to enjoy the town today, but they have at the back of their mind how it used to be. With a little bit of help, I think that our former glories will return. I have every confidence that the Minister will do all that he possibly can to assist Southend with its regeneration.

James Duddridge: May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on securing this debate so soon after our return from the recess? Having spent two months thinking of lots of things to say, and given the hours that one could spend talking about Southend, I thought I had to pare my contribution down to five minutes, only to find that I have the luxury of a little more time. It is a great position for someone who is so passionate about Southend to be in, but I will limit my comments and not take up all the available time and detain the Minister too long on his first full day in office. Ministers come, and Ministers go. In the case of some Ministers, they come and go, come and go, and come again. However, being made a Privy Councillor is something that people cannot take away from someone. The Minister will always be a right honourable Gentleman, and it is good to have him here to reply to the debate.
	I hesitate to disagree at the outset with my colleague, but the title of the debate gives me some discomfort. I represent Rochford and Southend, East, but as soon as I talk about Southend, everyone in Rochford writes to me and says, "What's wrong with Rochford?" I will not stray, however, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and test your patience. The other problem that I have with the debate concerns the other word in the title—there are only two words, so it seems rather churlish—which is "regeneration", as it suggests something that is done to an area, rather than by an area. It has connotations of the public sector, a master plan, a right way forward, and a process that is planned and ultimately reached. However, if one looks at Southend's history, some of the best changes have been organic and have been achieved bit by bit. Some of the worst things in Southend have been planned: the '70s tower blocks that were built, with old Victorian housing smashed through. Parts of the town centre were ripped out and destroyed to provide new, progressive, modern buildings, so I am a little concerned when we talk of regeneration that we may repeat past mistakes. Personally, I prefer the term, "investment", not only by the private sector but by the community, which should invest not just its money in the town but its time, community spirit and so on.
	Under the term, "regeneration", Southend council, quite rightly wants to make Southend a better place to live, work, visit and indeed to invest in. If we achieve all four things we will achieve regeneration—a term I dislike somewhat. Another term mentioned by my hon. Friend that has been bandied about is "partnerships". Everyone seems to be working in partnership, and it has almost become incestuous. We cannot be sure who are the different parties in the regeneration debate. I will illustrate that point for the Minister by citing an excellent development that I fully support. The university of Essex came to Southend, and, I walked through the site with the opening party, which was quite large—not only were there dignitaries and a member of the royal family but everyone who had participated in the project. Representatives of some 15 organisations were wandering through, and when we unveiled the plaque, there were about 15 different logos representing people who had put money in. One lady who was wandering round said, "You know, James, actually, it was us who pump-primed all of this." Their logo was not even on the board.
	When one drills down into the question of what those organisations were, quite often they were the Department for Communities and Local Government in one guise or format or another. Everyone was saying that they pump-primed the university: they put in a little bit of money and achieved a great deal of change. I asked them a question, "How much did the whole thing cost?", but very few people knew. In fact, no one was able to tell me. I am sure that I could have probed the issue further. Interestingly, however, when I spoke to a third of those 15 or so donors, no one appreciated the overall cost or how much Government money had been put in. No one appreciated how much DCLG money had been put in. They were just proud that they had pump-primed the investment.
	I worry that as part of the regeneration process, it is conceivable that we end up spending more money than we need to. It is also conceivable that we spend it on the wrong thing. One of the problems with all these partnerships is that there is a democratic deficit. There is a lack of linkage between what the people of Southend want and what all the organisations want. To a degree, Southend council got into an unholy alliance of necessity with a number of partnerships, because that is the only way to get money out of the Government. They played the game, but is it right? Are the rules of the game right? Is the structure of funding right? I assert to the Minister that it is not right, it is confusing and there is a democratic deficit. One of the things that he can do, not just for Southend, but for other areas in the country, is to give the process a good shake-up.
	In our area there is Thames gateway. No one I know describes themselves as living in Thames gateway. Thames gateway does not even exist. Southend exists. People say they come from Southend, from Prittlewell, from Essex or from the east end. Nobody has ever told me they come from Thames gateway. It is not a defined area of community spirit.
	I am extremely concerned about central Government taking assets into national hands, even with the acquiescence of a local council, to pump-prime some type of investment. That seems to be completely the wrong direction of travel. For example, English Partnerships took a large share in the car parks in Southend, in the hope that it would get private sector development money to develop those car parks, provide car parking space and develop the town centre. The Government should be helping to push money down, not pull money out.
	I want to be brief, but I want to touch on some of the points that my hon. Friend made. The errors in the census, which predates my election, are crucial. Those errors cost Southend £7 million every year. If the Minister takes away one thing from my contribution, will he please look at the figures again? The Government will probably not want to look all the way back to the last census, but we must make sure that we get the census right for areas such as Southend, Slough, Manchester and the City of Westminster, which do not easily fit into an existing box. It is difficult to measure those populations.
	Southend airport is an excellent airport. I have mixed feelings about its rebranding. It is now called London Southend, as seems to be the fashion with airports across the whole of the United Kingdom. Southend airport is a decent airport that is looking for extra money to expand. I ask the Minister to look at the 2012 Olympics and speak to his colleagues about London City airport, which may well have to close for security reasons. If it does—it would be a sensible decision to close London City—Southend airport needs the investment now rather than in three or four years so that it can be leveraged for the Olympics.
	I agree with my hon. Friend on transport infrastructure. We need a decision on Priory crescent as soon as possible. Almost any decision is better than the present prevarication, waiting and uncertainty. We need consistent, joined-up government. HMRC was mentioned. Not only are those 400 jobs moving away, but new public sector jobs cannot be created in Southend because the south-east is deemed an affluent area and under the Lyons review, new jobs cannot come into largely affluent areas such as the south-east and the east of England. That ignores the clear pockets of poverty in Southend, which are largely clustered around the very same buildings that provided a great deal of part-time work and temporary work—exactly the type of work that was getting people off benefits, into the working marketplace, then off benefits entirely and into full-time jobs.
	Lastly, I shall mention two issues. The first is the driving test centre in Southend. This might seem a trivial point but it is symptomatic of the Government moving services away. Southend has an expanding population and an expanding youth population, given the university, yet the Government have taken the decision to close Southend driving test centre. They held a consultation and ignored it. The consultation seemed pretty pointless, because the Government had made the decision already, and I must admit that I wondered aloud in my office, asking rhetorically, "What on earth is a consultation?"
	My research assistant, taking that more as an instruction than a rhetorical question, did some research on what a consultation is. Evidently a consultation is a consultation only if the decision is not predetermined. I have documents that have been leaked to me that say not only that the decision was taken, but that planning permission was granted and that the site was being built before the consultation took place, moving Southend driving test centre out of Southend and into a bigger centre near Basildon, which is a problem experienced elsewhere.
	Finally, let me reiterate the point about business rates on empty properties. There has been a boom in the demolition business in Southend. Some of the buildings were ugly and needed to be demolished; indeed, it is good that they have been demolished. However, there were many buildings that were important to Southend's history. There were lots of buildings that were largely unoccupied, but partially occupied by small businesses, which have had to move out and suffer all that disruption. I am not entirely sure whether what has happened in Southend is the same as elsewhere in the country or whether the Government's intentions have matched the consequences. I urge the Minister, in his dealings with other areas, to see whether the consequences of raising business rates on empty property have been adverse, particularly in regeneration areas.

John Healey: I congratulate both hon. Members who have spoken for their kind words and pay tribute to them for the tone in which they put the case for their constituencies and their town. We are fortunate to have more time than is generally the case for these end-of-day debates. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Amess) on securing this debate. It should surprise no one that he was first in line for the Adjournment debate on the first day back. He has a formidable reputation as an advocate, and not just for his current constituency—I notice that he even managed to work in a reference to Basildon, which has been ably represented since 1997 by my hon. Friend the Member for Basildon (Angela E. Smith).
	In many ways we are picking up from where the hon. Gentleman's previous Adjournment debate on the regeneration of his area a couple of years ago left off. We can see significant progress since then, which he was good enough to recognise. The new university of Essex campus in Southend is important for, as he put it, repositioning the town. We have seen a local area agreement signed between the Government and Southend, together with the agencies with which the council works. The priorities set by that agreement included improving Southend's image, raising the level of activity in the local economy and raising aspirations in the local area. We have also seen the beginning of a public consultation on a new home for Southend's Saxon king artefacts.
	A new location has also been found for Southend United football club, at Fossett's Farm. As I also follow a team in the lower divisions of the football league, let me in passing congratulate the team on its victory at the weekend, although I note that Yeovil were down to nine men at the end of the game. Nevertheless, three points are three points.
	There is also the wider regional view, which is important to the town. The recently published east of England spatial strategy identifies Southend as one of the important centres for development and change, particularly in skills, transport and wider regeneration or investment, as the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) argued. The strategy is important in the longer term, because it places Southend in the Essex part of the Thames Gateway and the drive to see an extra 55,000 jobs in that period, as well as setting out the ambition of a significant number of new homes in the area, which will also be needed.
	The Government have tried to give support where we can—not only in the local area agreement but in backing the local strategic partnership, Southend Together—to opportunities that are in the area and for the area. I share the reservations expressed by the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East about the term regeneration. Sometimes it has meant something that has been done to an area, having been drawn up by agencies outside the area, rather than something that has been done by an area for itself. The local strategic partnership now plays an important role in ensuring that the future of Southend is determined in Southend, drawing on support from outside the area—from within the region and from Government, where it can—while nevertheless fashioning its future for itself.
	After studying this matter, I believe that in many ways we are on the cusp of an important period, in which there will be significant opportunities to promote Southend's advantages as a location close to London and connected with the 2012 Olympics, to make maximum use of its assets as a seaside town and of its pier, and to promote Southend—as the borough council is doing—as a place to visit and to live, work and invest in.
	I welcome the description of the hon. Member for Southend, West of himself as a wholehearted supporter of the Olympic games. As he explained, Southend has been selected as a pre-games training camp, and was included in the guide distributed to the nations competing in Beijing. It has also been designated as a Paralympic training camp for a number of sports. I will certainly alert my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Olympics to his vision for the use of the pier as part of the Olympic ceremonies, and to his enthusiasm for his town to play a part in the Olympic games.
	However, it has been recognised in the debate that, despite the fact that Southend is a town with many attractions, it is also a town with serious pockets of deprivation, hence the need for the investment that we are discussing. Before I come to the question of regeneration, however, let me deal with some of the specific points that have been raised in the debate.
	The second reservation of the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East about regeneration concerned the plethora of partners that can sometimes be involved. I am not saying that he is wrong, but when we look at the need for investment and regeneration across the piece, we see that it can be a complex business. It involves much more than just the need for a new building or for physical regeneration, and often requires the contribution, and the alignment of plans, of a number of different agencies. Nevertheless, in our regeneration efforts around the country there is undoubtedly scope to reduce the complexity of the arrangements. That has been part of the thinking behind bringing together the new Homes and Communities Agency under the Department in which I am a Minister, so that it can become possible for areas such as Southend, and their councils and local agencies, to have a single conversation with the Government about their plans and their case for future investment. I hope that we shall see the process becoming a little more straightforward, now that the agency has been established under the very able leadership of Sir Bob Kerslake.
	On empty property relief, I have to say that I did not entirely follow the argument of the hon. Member for Southend, West. He said that there was a shortage of office space in Southend and that the empty property relief was causing the problem. Part of the rationale for removing the relief is that it increases the incentives or decreases the disincentives for rapid re-letting or redevelopment. That, together with recognition that the relief cost the taxpayer £1.3 billion a year, was the nub of the case for making changes to the empty property relief. Given that pressure on public spending and concern about other taxation were so strong, it was difficult to justify that level of public subsidy for property owners who were keeping their properties empty. Although we keep all tax regimes under review, we stand by the case for introducing those changes. As the Minister responsible, working closely with the Valuation Office Agency and local authorities, I have been able to assess their impact. We are now about six months into the financial year in which they were made, but we are keeping a close eye on them.
	On population, it is difficult territory and it has also been well tilled, not least by the hon. Member for Southend, West. When the 2001 census was published in 2002, there were obvious discrepancies, particularly in some areas, with the mid-year estimates. That led to the Office for National Statistics doing a substantial study in 2004 to get to the bottom of those difficulties. I believe that 32 different areas, including Southend, were examined and that adjustments were made to the mid-year estimates in respect of about half of them. The hon. Gentleman has debated the issue several times and he will remember that, unlike in the areas where adjustments were made, there was no evidence for doing so in the case of Southend.
	Until a little more than a year ago, I was the Minister responsible for the ONS for two years, so I was heavily involved in the preparations for the next census. The ONS is taking a number of important steps to ensure that any apparent or arguable flaws in the 2001 census will not be evident in 2011. I hope that we will ensure that, as the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East urged, the 2011 census is soundly based so that we do not have to confront similar difficulties. Looking back over the decades, the difficulty of conducting censuses is compounded by the fact that our communities are not only much more diverse, but very much more mobile. That makes the census a difficult technical challenge to undertake.
	Having been the Minister responsible for Customs and Excise before Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs came along, I am aware of how important Southend is to the service. The reduction in the number of posts planned for Southend is smaller than in some other areas. As I understand the plans, most of the reductions will be achieved through natural wastage.
	On cliff slippage, I am grateful for the recognition that the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), helped out when she was a Transport Minister.
	I will look further into the European regulations on whether things are classed as cable cars or railways and try to find out whether something in the application is making things more difficult than they need to be. I cannot promise, however—I do not want to raise expectations—that there will be any more central Government money to help if the finances are squeezed.
	May I come to the question at the heart of the debate, which is the regeneration and future of Southend? As the hon. Member for Southend, West made clear very powerfully, there are some structural weaknesses in the Southend economy, which in the past relied principally on tourism and certain types of financial and business services. Although estimates show that more than 6 million visitors go to Southend each year—making a substantial input to the economy and the jobs base that relies on such visitors—it is clear that that is increasingly difficult to rely on, particularly in view of today's tastes and some of the problems we have seen this summer with the British weather.
	Looking at the figures, a second structural weakness that strikes me is the skills base of Southend. The figures for what in the jargon is level 2 and what to the rest of us is the equivalent of five good GCSEs show that Southend lags behind the national level. That has been clearly recognised by the council and the agencies that it works with as one of the priorities to tackle through the new local area agreements.
	In tackling the structural weaknesses, there is physical regeneration and the softer regeneration that is required. Let me deal with the physical first. At the heart of the matter—what, in a sense should be the answer to the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend, East—is the fact that Renaissance Southend should be the locally led way to harness the concerns and potential investments from the public and private sectors towards a vision for the future of Southend that is brought together, agreed and agreed locally. Some of the work on the master planning has started, as has work on some of the assembly of land. Work has also started on some of the repositioning or rebranding of Southend.
	As the hon. Member for Southend, West argued, Southend is more than simply a seaside town, but something new is needed for the new era. The redefinition of Southend as a town, based around investment in education—partly to deal with the structural problems that I mentioned and partly to give the town a lift and a new direction—is an important element, alongside the cultural profile that the town is also trying to raise. Trying to make the town a cultural and commercial centre for the region is an important part of the future. The £20 million newly opened campus for the university of Essex is clearly pivotal to that, providing not only education facilities, but a business development centre and an innovation centre, alongside the commercial space.
	I do not think that this has been mentioned in the debate, but the ambition to link further education with the new higher education facility is important in encouraging rising aspirations and a sense for many young people locally—indeed, older people as well, but particularly the next generation—that what is provided in Southend offers the possibility to achieve the qualifications and skills levels that are lacking in the town. The investment of £52 million in the South East Essex college building at the heart of the town centre is a big part of that. The use of education and culture offers a new direction that marks Southend out as different from other towns in the region.
	On the cultural side, there are recent projects such as Metal, the artists' laboratory, which is creating a new headquarters in Southend-on-Sea. I have mentioned the proposed new £35 million Saxon king museum and cultural centre, and I must say that I was not aware that Helen Mirren hailed originally from Southend, but that is clearly a potential asset for the town.
	On Priory crescent, the borough council is poised to submit to the Department for Transport a major scheme business case on the pressure point of its junction with the A127 at Cuckoo corner. The hon. Member for Southend, West may want to make local inquiries about that, but that is my understanding. If that is submitted, Ministers will give it full consideration alongside the other calls on central transport funding. However, I will ensure that his views are registered and part of the consideration that Transport Ministers bring to bear should that case be submitted.
	I have mentioned the physical side—the structural weaknesses—and, in passing, the social side of improvements in investment, and that is where the requirement for the aligned effort of a number of agencies comes into play in any bid to regenerate an area. In identifying the five most important factors in making their neighbourhood a good place to live, residents did not choose big investment in regeneration of buildings and facilities, but chose instead the level of crime, heath services, clean streets, education provision and decent housing. No single agency can help to solve the problems posed by each and every one of those five challenges and improve standards entirely on its own. For instance, the effective collaboration of different agencies in Southend led to a 20 per cent. reduction in crime compared with four years ago. That is a notable success and beyond the targets set locally for that work.
	The aim is to make Southend a good place to live, work, visit and invest in. It has some strong natural advantages, including a good location and the potential of the 2012 Olympics to drive some of the new ambitions. There is no doubt that Southend needs a fresh direction—a repositioning, as the hon. Gentleman described it. There is no doubt that its future is more promising than its immediate past. As a Government, we will work to support the plans of the local authority, and the agencies alongside it, in whatever way we can to secure that aim so that Southend does indeed recapture, although in a different way, some of its former glories.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at two minutes to Ten o'clock.